Venturi, Rauch, Scott, Brown

Shows and describes fire stations, college buildings, museums, offices, stores, houses, dormitories, apartments, furniture, and tea service designed by the famous American architectural firm

The members of this distinguished Philadelphia architectural firm are noted for their writings as well as their projects, and von Moos, who teaches art history in Switzerland and England, discusses both their theories and designs. Analyzing the Guild Housean early building that expresses many of partner Robert Venturi's ideasthe author maintains that the postmodern approach pioneered by Venturi brings a welcome vitality to structures by making use of traditional elements, wedding high and low art and retreating from the rigidity of early modernist style. He explains Venturi's breakdown of all buildings into two types"ducks" and "decorated sheds"and he explores the many continuing experiments of the firm, including Wu Hall at Princeton and the future extension to the National Gallery of Art in London. This title includes over 400 plates.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This is the first scholarly monograph published in America on the Philadelphia architectural firm Venturi, Rauch, and Scott Brown, led by Robert Venturi, America's most influential architect over the past 20 years. Its author, Stanislaus von Moos, is a Swiss art historian and a well-known authority on 20th-century architecture. Much has been written by and about Venturi and his firm's work, including exhibit catalogs, journal articles, and special issues of architectural journals; but this book tops them all with its generous format, copious illustrations (many in color), and probing essay. Peter Kaufman, Suffolk Community Coll. Lib., Selden, N.Y.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.